The Marriage of Design and Copy

We are gathered here today to join together … your web copy and web site design. The pairing really is like a marriage. They must spend their lives together, endure unforeseen changes in each other, for better or worse, and they must work together to make the marriage successful.

But how do you know if the marriage will work? Like any marriage, you don’t, but you trust that, with a little effort, it will. That effort means something more than just pluncking down hastily written copy on a web page template and posting it to your site.

Your web design should enhance your copy and your copy should enhance your design. Design improves copy when it highlights the copy and makes it easier to consume. Copy improves design when it gives meaning to design elements that are otherwise just decoration.

To make the marriage work, your designer and copywriter must work together; both understanding your key messages, the purpose of the site and your target audience(s).

If one must flow from the other, write your copy first. In the end, it’s your copy that compels action, at least most often, and its tone and direction will be the cue for your design. (Yes, I am a copywriter.)

However it happens, it is important for your business that the union of design and copy is a happy one. Happy design/copy marriages are fruitful and produce lots of little clicks on your call-to-action.

Bad marriages? No clicks.

By Stephen Da Cambra